Adrian Chen

Why does Facebook hate the human body? It allows no nude pictures; porn stars are chased off the site simply for being porn stars. Even works of art that feature unclothed private parts fall before Facebook's puritanical policies.

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Art schools and museums who upload nude drawings and paintings to their Facebook pages have found the pictures deleted and their accounts disabled. When the New York Academy of Art posted a drawing of a—gasp—topless woman by artist Steven Assael, it was met with a deletion and a warning: "You uploaded a photo that violates our terms of use, and this photo has been removed."

The school wrote an outraged post on its blog. "[We] find it difficult to allow Facebook to be the final arbiter - and online curator - of the artwork we share with the world."

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Facebook told the New York Times that the deletion was a mistake, and that Facebook loves all art—even about naked people! In fact there is an "unwritten policy that allows drawings or sculptures of nudes," said a spokesperson. "In this case, we congratulate the artist on his lifelike portrayal that, frankly, fooled our reviewers."

Ha, good one. Upload all the nude art you want, as long as they're not pictures or videos... because these are not art? And make sure the drawing isn't too good, or else it might be mistaken for a photograph and deleted. Facebook welcomes all of your shitty nude drawings and paintings.

Facebook's ideas about both nudity and what constitutes art are very 19th century. Were their policies designed by Victorian schoolmarms? They suggest there is something especially offensive about photons bouncing off a woman's bare chest, entering the lens of a camera and making an impression on a light sensor to create a photograph. Japanese cartoons and American Apparel ads have proved this incorrect. [New York Times]